About Me

Born in Istanbul, Alev Gökçe Erem began her studies at the ITU Turkish Music State Conservatory in 1994. The following year, she continued her training under Venyamin Varsavsky at the Istanbul University State Conservatory.

Between 1999 and 2001, Gökçe attended master classes at the International Music Academy of Ayvalık where she performed with Lukas David and Suna Kan and later participated in classes in Schloss Kröchlendorf where she worked with Bela Papp and Ulrike Anima Mathe.

After receiving her Bachelor’s Degree in violin performance from the Istanbul University of State Conservatory in 2007, she participated in a tour with the Mediterranean Youth Orchestra in Nice, France. Along with famous conductors like Jean-François Heisser and Phillippe Bender, she also had an opportunity to accompany famous soloists like Laurent Korcia, Pierre Amoyal, and Thiery Amadi during this tour.

In April 2009, Gökçe participated in a tour with Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra where she played with great musicians and conductors as well as touring the Europe for a month. Later in July, she played for the International Orchestra Institut Attergau’s which performs under the patronage of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and in co-operation with the institute of Wiener Klangstill. Since then, she has been receiving regular invites from the IOIA orchestra and has been participating in concerts in Salzburg and Attersee.

Gökçe received her Master of Music Degree from Venyamin Varsavsky’s violin class at the Istanbul University of State Conservatory in June 2011. Throughout her career, she had various opportunities to work with the orchestras led by Sascha Goetzel, Rengim Gökmen, Alexander Rahbari, Peter Gülke, Ibrahim Yazıcı, Cem Mansur, Gürer Aykal, Naci Ozguc, Michel Tabachnik, Nezih Seckin, Hakan Sensoy, Erol Erdinc, Emin Guven Yaslicam, Ingo Metzmacher and Vladimir Fedoseyev.

She still continues to study violin with Venyamin Varsavsky and gives concerts with the various orchestras like Cemal Resit Rey Symphony Orchestra, Istanbul Chamber Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the National Reinsurance Chamber Orchestra, Sisli Municipality Symphony Orchestra, the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra, the Akbank Chamber Orchestra, Maltepe Municipality Symphony Orchestra and the Orkestrasion Chamber Orchestra. Also she has been continuing to play for the Istanbul State Modern Folk Music Ensemble since December 2007.

As a current resident of New York, Gökçe continues her studies at NYU-Steinhardt with Prof. Kikuei Ikeda and Prof. Naoko Tanaka with a scholarship in performance program for the Advanced Certificate Diploma. She gives concerts with NYU Symphony Orchestra as the concertmaster(2013-present), One World Symphony (As Principal 2.Violin) , The Chelsea Symphony Orchestra,Kamerata NY and Staten Island Philharmonic Orchestra. She has performed with the Tony award winning singer John Lloyd Young, who is also the main character from the musical Jersey Boys, at Café Carlyle where she played in a series of concerts with a very important musician and producer Tommy Faragher. She also plays in chamber music groups with the most talented musicians in NYC.

She is currently getting ready for violin competitions and auditions around NYC. Since she has moved to NYC she has started to work with Alexander Markov, a world famous violinist virtuoso who is also living in NYC.

Gökçe speaks fluent English and German.